For the whole trip, start with the bottom entry and work your way up!

1/12, 1122 EST

Had to take a quick break there for Teddy’s soccer practice. It was adorable. I suppose it’s time to put a bow on this write up, and I’ll do as much with a few summarized thoughts bulleted below.

1. Spain is fun as hell. I love France- the language is beautiful, the food is impeccable, and the wines are amazing. But where France pales in comparison to Spain is it’s fun factor. Madrid was cheap and fast and packed and jovial. Rioja, in the words of my friend Andrew Maksimovich (the guy half-responsible for pushing me to go to Spain instead of somewhere else) “is like going to a big party and everyone there is your friend”. I’ll never forget the elder fellas working at the bustling tapas bars on Calle de San Juan and Laurel- they were in their 50s and 60s and seemed happy as shit to be serving up the hordes of people skewers of mushrooms for $1.40 each (the whole country just seems too cheap to be real, seriously). They smiled real smiles, they were patient with everyone, and they were kind to us all. Another thing that really stuck out to all of us, being service industry people in particular, is that not one single time was I asked to start a tab. There was this incredible amount of trust among the entire crowd- nobody was pushy or cutting in line, nobody was intentionally disrespectful or dismissive, and nobody was going to walk on their tab. At the end, some places asked you what you had, you told them, and then payed your bill. The staffs everywhere demonstrated astounding levels of personal connection with complete strangers, which I think spoke to a greater plane of happiness to them. We often jabbed at our American way of doing things- “maybe if all of your basic needs are met by your society and government, life is a whole lot more enjoyable for the working class, eh?”, and in that jest was a ton of truth. I love Spain, and the Spaniards. I can’t wait to go back (I’m thinking Galicia next time, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves now).

2. The wine over-delivered. I’ll admit it, as I have already once or twice before- I’ve never been into Rioja. It’s always been a mainstream region with incredible household notoriety that I’ve obviously been exposed to before (I’ve probably tasted hundreds over the years), but it’s never been one to reach out, grab me, shake me violently and say “look how fucking good I am!”, and that’s changed. The wines of the DO are more diverse than I thought they’d be. Yeah, the old school guys like oak a lot, but not in the same way and for the same reasons that other oak lovers do. Most Rioja, even the Gran Reservas from the big boys see very little to no new oak at all, and that practice keeps their wines far more approachable and honest expressions of the grapes themselves. Tempranillo, particularly in the Cosecha and Crianza form, has incredible value as a “table red” and proved to go with damn near anything you could put on the table, including lots of seafood. I drank a LOT of Viura this year, between the Roussillon (where we call it Macbeau) and Rioja, and love it’s mineral driven, generous character. The old, aged Reserva and Gran Reserva stuff is in a class of it’s own, even when comparing internationally. And yes, despite the acclaimed and impressive wines taking the center stage for us, there is also plenty of inoffensive, tasty, cheap stuff to drink too.

3. The producer visits were eye opening, informative, and warm. Each one of them was totally different, too- we saw the grandeur of Lopez de Heredia, the small family run business of Akutain, the personal and experimental creaciones of Tierre/Exeo, and the commercial side of things at Obalo. All that AND a night on the town with Jose Luis Ripa, who didn’t let being so tiny that he doesn’t even have a winery make it so that he couldn’t warmly welcome us to his hometown, show us his wine and a lot of his friend’s wines, and a hell of a time with stimulating conversation to boot. Each of them was as happy to see us as we were to see them, and it showed. Every single one of them gave us so much loving generosity and transparent, candid dialogue about not just their wines, but their lives. We got to meet the people that put the juice in the bottles for us, and listen to their stories, and come to know their personalities and senses of humor, and hear about what their work group dynamics are, and those kinds of thing is invaluable to me. Like restaurants, wine is above all else a human industry, and going to meet them on their own turf is the best way to understand them.

4. My staff kicks ass. Like, totally fucking rules. They were professional, inquisitive, and polite every step of the way with our producer visits, and then really embraced the whole letting-their-hair-down aspects of being in Spain. They ate new things, drank new things, figured out new cities, and I think everyone had a memorable time. Most of them pushed through the discomfort of communicating in Spanish like champs, which our Spanish brethren appreciated no matter how bad our accents or verb conjugations were. We’re back in Richmond having accomplished the whole point of this trip- to develop an appreciation for something we’d never seen before. Our lives are richer and our hearts are fuller for having gone, and I’m glad that they hold experiences like this as highly in their life’s priorities as I do.

Thanks for reading along. It’s been fun to write, and even if it’s just my mom reading this (idk if she has, I haven’t gotten a text telling me to swear less yet, so who knows), I’m glad you did. Until next time. Adios.

DG

1/12, 0723 EST

The final full day in Spain, Monday, was mostly quiet and ultra relaxing. I’ve got a pretty firm “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” policy when it comes to being “ready” for a trip to be over. Even missing the boys, Meggo, Arnie, the restaurants, salads, and everything else back in America, I wasn’t about to let my last 24 hours go to waste. I slept in like a real deal Spaniard, and upon rising for the day around 10 AM, briefly contemplated a spur of the moment tattoo. There was a shop in town that the youngish ones all got inked at towards the end of the trip, and the guy actually did really nice line work. Without something in mind and with nothing really coming to me, I passed. I didn’t really have a plan for the day, but my flight was leaving Bilbao (about a 90 minute drive from Logrono) at 9 AM the next morning, so I decided to pack up and hit the road a day early. I booked a cheap hotel in downtown Bilbao, tidied up my BNB, packed my bag, and embarked on one last crawl of San Juan and Laurel for lunch before I bid adios to Logrono.

On my drive to Bilbao I stopped at Bodegas Obalo for look around with my new pal Andrew, who we’d met some nights before at the best wine bar in Logrono, Roots (those guys know their stuff and have such a friendly way of serving unfamiliar wines to enthused guests, highly recommend). Andrew is from the UK, and has been making wine all over the world for, well, I’m not even sure, but it’s clearly been a while. He took the lead post at Obalo just last year and has just one vintage under his belt in Rioja. We walked and talked our way through the winery for an hour, tasting tank and barrel samples the whole way through, comparing vintages, wood types, and even just barrel variation (I’ve never known what people mean by “we’ll hold the best barrels back for the Reserva” until I tasted it for myself with him… and it’s a thing. Some barrels age better tasting wine than others and have a distinct personality, even those made with the same types of wood made by the same coopers). I’m glad I made the pit stop, too. Andrew was unlike any of the winemakers that I’ve met on my travels- he was a mercenary, a winemaking gun for hire of sorts, that was brought in to (in his own words, and I’m paraphrasing here) “make solid wine that can command a decent price… and not fuck this up”. Obalo has been around for a few decades, having been founded by one of Spain’s richest men, and was still finding it’s footing in the order of the DO. They don’t own more than the vines surround the the Bodega, but buy an incredible amount of grapes from the local farmers. This negociant practice is by far the most common way to make wine all over the world, both Old and New. Estate fruit that is tended to in the vineyard and then manipulated into wine in the winery by the same few people (think Akutain, Tierra from this trip and every winery from the French trip last summer- Le Soula, Dom des Deux Cles, Olivier Pithon, Lampyres) is actually the exception to the rule. All wine exists on some kind of economy of scale, and Obalo is about getting good, clean, quality wine to the masses for a good price. In restaurant terms, it would be as if I never opened Grisette to do my own thing but instead went to be the executive chef at The Jefferson or CCV or something. It’s not the same, but certainly industry adjacent. It’s a path that allows a lot of folks to flourish, and one that’s necessary to keep wine in the commodity category of our lives as opposed to assigning it luxury value. Andrew is a sharp dude, and is doing good work in a clean, modern wine making facility, and I really appreciated our time spent together.

Bilbao was a rad little city. Bigger than Logrono but significantly smaller than Madrid, the few square kilometers that I saw outside of driving into town were quite commercial. Some of the facades had that old school European look to them, but the rest of the architecture was modern and appeared to be sparkling new. Shopping was the name of the game in the Center of the city, and once checked into my hotel, I bounced out for one last evening of browsing around stores and stopping for consumables. I bought an inexpensive fountain pen, something I’ve been wanting from afar for a while, and since I’ve begun dusting off 3-decade-old cursive handwriting that I used to really love as a kid (always hated math, always loved writing, even by hand and with cursive). I met up with Jake and Kate for one last hurrah of jamon and wine (up in Bilbao, it’s all about Txakoli, a welcomed transition from reds of Rioja, especially as a guy who typically drinks more white than red by about 5-1). Our last stop was for dessert and a gin and tonic, the big Spanish kind that I love, served in a wine glass with fun botanicals and citrus peels in it. We reflected on our trip, singing the praises for the culture and geography and gastronomic approach of the reigion. We admitted in hushed tones that while croquettas and jamon and cheese and bread was awesome, we missed vegetables, and wouldn’t be heartbroken to cleanse this trip out of our systems with balanced meals when we returned home. I declared that G+T my last drink for a good long while (probably for the rest of the month I think as of now). It was a fitting bookend to an amazing time spent celebrating the food and drink of Spain. We did it, and we did it right.

I’ll distill the trip home in one very short sentence- it was fucking long. Bilbao to Madrid to London to Dulles to ubering to Reagan because I’m a moron to driving back to Richmond. 24 hours from door to door. Woof. Oh, and fuck Iberian Airlines. My backpack that I’ve taken on a hundred flights as a carry-on was deemed too big, and had to be unnecessarily checked, adding a lot of undue stress and uncertainty to our Madrid layover. Get wrecked, Iberian Airlines gate attendants, everyone on that plane had a suitcase “carry-on” way bigger than mine.

1/11, 0924 EST, (from a tiny chair in the boys’ playroom at home in Richmond while I watch Teddy play with trains)

Our last official producer visit as a group was a full 8 hour experience on Sunday with the good people of Bodega y Vineros Tierra in the Rioja Alavesa village of Labastisda, some 30 minutes from Logrono. Labastida is as quintessential of an Old World village as there is- a few hundred year rounders with a decent influx of city folks with second homes and tourism in the warmer months. It’s built into the side of the Sierra Cantabria mountains to the extent that every home in La Bastida comes with a centuries old cave underneath of it. There is a network of underground tunnels that connect the entire village, and even some under the church that are up to 12 kilometers long, connecting Labastida to the surrounding villages. The winery itself was a little tricky to find, but with Megan’s translating help, we got there. Carlos, the winemaker, had a family emergency and couldn’t make it, but he left us in the hands of Catalin and Juan, two of the four winemakers on staff (including Carlos himeself). Both spoke pretty damn good English, though much to my amusement, the more they drank, the more broken it got. The winery was built into the side of the mountain and consisted of a labyrinth of ancient caves and tunnels dug right out of the earth.

Tierra makes wine under a few different labels. Their more traditional stuff is labeled under the flagship, Tierra, while their more terroir-driven and experimental wines go by the name of Creaciones Exeo. They also have a pretty admirable open-mindedness that allows some of their more tenured employees to have their own babies and projects. It immediately struck me as a project that was immensely personal to everyone that worked there. There seemed to be a trial period, or extended stage in restaurant terms, to be on their team. “Come for 2 weeks, stay for 10 years” was the slogan that Catalin and Juan used often. 45 combined hectares is a lot for only having 4 full time winemakers, and not just during the harvest (they bring in another dozen to pick each year). Racking, tasting, transferring from vessel to vessel, bottling, labeling, CLEANING (everywhere we went, there is always so much cleaning going on)- no small task indeed. While the Tierra Crianza is their bread and butter (reminds me of a cocktail we used to have on the menu at Grisette called “Vodka Pays the Bills”), their range was astounding. We counted a dozen different types of ageing vessels just in one area (stainless, amphora, concrete, American oak barrels, Acacia barrels, you name it, they were using it), and their single varietal, single vineyard stuff was outstanding. We tasted almost 20 of their 27 annually made (in most years) wines, and each one lent a different take on the 30-something scattered vineyard plots that they own. The tasting was in depth, and we peppered them with questions about their practices in the vines and cellar. Like everyone else we saw on this trip, they consider a lot of variables when making viti and vinicultural decisions, always trying to do less and letting the juice speak for itself. Manipulation in the vineyard is kept to a minimum (no trellises, irrigation, etc), and any use of treatments for the vines is reserved for dire situations (Juan called it like pressing the red button. “We call the President (Carlos) and get the codes before we hit the red button, and lucky for us it almost never has to happen”.

***Aside*** The “natural” wine world is full of people like this, even though nobody wants to admit it. Being TRULY 100% natural and non-intervention is a pipe dream in 99.99% of operations. The truth is, if the vintage is troublesome and mildew attacks your vines, your choices are to either hit the red button (use a spray/treamtment of some kind) to save the vintage, or lose your whole crop, risk infecting all of your neighbors, and making no wine. In a lot of the cases, making nothing in a vintage is economically catastrophic. Most wineries don’t have a Mouton-Rothschild sized bankroll. No wine means firing people. No wine might mean shuttering a business. It might mean not putting food on your table for your family, or finally being able to buy a home, or sending your kids to university. Not every winery that doesn’t believe in astrology is owned by fucking Monsanto. The zero-zero zealot mindset smacks of either incredible privilege (ie. personal wealth, the money we make off this wine doesn’t really matter), a borderline insane gamble, or the willingness to sell a wine that tastes objectively like shit. One can simultaneously respect the approach of non-interventionist practices in wine while also understanding the human cost of what happens when that goes wrong. We can all look for honest wines made by honest people, but insisting on a self defeating set of standards that would eventually make wine so scarce it would cause the prices to spike out of control is ignorant, idealistic, and simply not our approach at Jardin. If local produce became 100% unavailable to me at Grisette for one summer because mother nature decided as much, would we order veggies from a larger mono-cropping company, or simply fire the staff, close the restaurant, and be proud of our principled approach? I’ll let you answer that one.

After the tour and tasting, Catalin was ready for some beers (naturally), and walked us down the mountainside village to some bars. Everyone knew everyone (again, naturally), and eventually we made our way to the restaurant we’d be having lunch at. That lunch would prove to be the best meal I had on the whole trip. It was rounds and rounds and rounds of food, all coming off of a big wood fired hearth. Octopus, blood sausage, carpaccio (the beef was cured and sliced thinly, drizzled with olive oil, and then seasoned with salt and dark chocolate… it was inventive (to my simple mind) and superb), and giant ribeyes with padron peppers. The Tierra Crianza would serve as the backdrop the entire meal, and I was blown at how versatile of a table wine it was with everything. We ordered dessert and coffee and champagne all at the same time, followed by Catalin ordering AN ENTIRE BOTTLE of Scotch for the table. Even as we all waved the white flag, it was the kind of gathering that you just didn’t want to end. It was one of those experiences where you just want time to freeze. To stay in Labastida forever, and take the red pill and start making wine with these guys instead of whatever else you were going to do with your life. Maybe next summer I’ll come back for 2 weeks. And then stay for 10 years.

1/7, 2055

Working in wine and food is a highly sensory endeavor. It is an industry that stimulates your senses across the board. Seeing the Sierra Cantabra mountains today was breathtaking. Smelling the 150 year old cellar at Lopez de Heredia was like jumping in a olfactory time machine. Outside my windows, church bells are ringing and people are mingling and there is an audible energy in the air. And then, there’s taste, the ultimate sense for people like us. The most exciting and delicious flavors roll over our tongues every single day at work, between tasting wine and food. Foie gras, marcona almonds, perfect tomatoes in the summer, crispy frites, allll the fucking wine you could imagine… a restaurant staff’s life (at places like Grisette and Jardin, at least) is full of flavor. Alcohol, though (and food for that matter, with respect to sugar, fat, and salt), is a hell of a drug, and one that needs to be taken seriously if you want to have any kind of longevity in the field. My body was asking for a break today, so I begrudgingly took one. The truth is, I don’t drink that much at home- I have a wife, two kids, a dog, and a home to maintain. That’s not even mentioning my job, which demands somewhere between 40-80 hours of my time on any given week, and something that I take seriously. But I spit at every single wine tasting I sit through. I never go out to bars after work. If you want to live a full life, have big professional aspirations, meet deadlines, challenge yourself, get some exercise regularly, um, idk, sleep a decent amount at night for fuck’s sake, you ain’t gonna do yourself any favors by being drunk all the time. Plus, I’m a husky fella and getting to an age (creeping on 40, ayeyaeyae) where my body is going to betray me if I don’t keep up with it. Don’t get me wrong- I can tie one on with the best of them, even here in Logrono where everyone seems to have unlimited eating and drinking stamina. But four nights in a row of going hard in the paint was a lot for an old fat guy like me, so I took it easy today and drank lots of water, ate well but mostly clean, and only had a couple sips of wine at our visit with Jon at Bodegas Akutain this morning (when you put a glass of his 2015 Gran Reserva up to your nose sometime later this month when the wine arrives in our restaurants, trust me, you’ll understand). It pained me to sit on the sidelines as the cru went out for another night of tapas and vinos, but it was the right call for me. Plus, I’ve got a lot to say about today’s producer visit.

Bodegas Akutain is situated about 45 minutes from Logrono, back towards the village of Haro. Just a handful of kilometers from the rugged Sierra Cantabra mountains and near the banks of the Ebro river, Akutain’s Crianza is a wine that we at Jardin are all quite familiar with. It’s been one of our best selling bottles since we opened the shop, and it continues to charm us to this day. It’s on the shelf for something like 28 bucks, which is a sweet spot for a “fullish bodied red” that’s not cheap, but also doesn’t feel like a big splurge for most of our clientele. I have never had an opportunity to try Akutain’s Reserva or Gran Reserva before, and even in my bloodshot eyed, espresso fueled, gently hungover state this morning, I was looking forward to getting a taste of the good stuff. I was also really excited to see the operation- unlike LdH (172 hectares ie. massive) and Jose Luis Ripa (1 hectare, ie. miniscule), Akutain occupies what is typically my favorite size for a producer, fighting as a light-middleweight but in the ring with the big boys. Jon oversees the production of only 4 different bottlings of wine produced from the 7 hectares that his father planted in the early 1970’s. He has only one full time employee, Paco (Luis from LdH’s cousin, of course), and one part time employee, Angel, working with him in the winery. Three brothers in the village of Anguciana, where the bodega is situated, help him tend the vines part time. At harvest, he enlists 5 other people to help with the picking while he drives the tractor and Paco loads the fermentation tanks. Angel takes on an elder advisory role in the cellar, acting as the all important master blender- he’s been in the game in Rioja since wayyy before modern technology came along. His nose and palate are responsible for the final blending of the 130 barrels, which are all kept separate by vineyard site until bottling. In the grand scheme of wine, it’s a small operation. But in small operations, I often find the most inspiring people.

We pulled up to the bodega at a quarter to 9 and waited for Jon to come out and greet us. He lives full time here, in the winery, and has for the last year or so while his new apartment in his hometown of San Sebastian is under construction. Since he took the bodega over for his aging father 10 years ago, he has spent M-F living in the little flat on site, and spending the weekends at home where his family, friends, and rest of his life is, in San Sebastian. It was cold and foggy this morning, maybe 35 degrees, and when he came out to greet us he was wearing nothing but a long sleeve shirt and a vest. He wanted to know if we were good to walk up the hillside that the bodega is built into, where we’d have a much better view of the vineyards. It was our first actual trip into the vines this week, which is uncommon for trips like this, but it’s just kinda the way it worked out with our first two visits going how they did. The soil was thick, pale clay, studded with limestone, and covered in deer and wild boar prints, both of which are the main culprits of grape thievery when the fruit sets every summer. “These deer, they just come and eat an entire row. And for them, it’s just one tasty meal. For me, it means I lose a couple hundred liters of wine!”, Jon told us. His English, like Luis and Jose Luis’s, was impeccable. He used some words that caught me off guard in their very complex and specific meaning and had great command of metaphors and analogies. It was an absolute pleasure to listen to him talk about his family’s estate and their practices and philosophies there. On top of the hill, we could see all 4 of his plots, none of them more than a kilometer or two away from the bodega, which he emphatically believes keeps his wines fresh, clean, and precise. Alcoholic fermentation is a pretty simple process if all you’re looking for is ethanol that’ll get ya drunk. But wine, and I don’t just mean good wine, I mean GREAT wine, demands attention at every step of the process. Attention does not mean intervention, either. It means that you’re constantly checking, analyzing, and making decisions based on a combination of years of experience and tradition and known science. Keeping the vineyards close to the bodega and the planted area small (7 hectares ain’t that much) means that the grapes can go from vine to fermentation tank in a matter of minutes come harvest time. No long tractor rides in the hot Spanish sun. No sitting in line outside the bodega while everything in front of it gets weighed and dealt with. They pick early, when the grapes are still cool from the chilly, mountainous night and get to work right away. It keeps bad bacteria from rearing it’s head, it keeps the yeast from overheating and dying in the fermentation process, and it ends up retaining some much needed acidity in all of his varietals (he’s got over 90% Tempranillo, and likes it that way, damnit).

Jon talked to us a lot about his constant repugnance of being trendy, or “fashionable”, as he called it. Things in Rioja are changing, for sure, he says, and a lot of them are good changes. But some of them are not. People are obsessed with single vineyard bottlings (in the wine crowd, yes, yes they fucking are) and diminish the importance of blends. People are saying that Garnacha is better than Tempranillo (ptui, no way). People are either only using computers and machines to make their wine (as in the mega producers), or refusing to use sensible vineyard management practices and a little sulphur at bottling (the hardcore natty crowd), and go figure, neither of them are making objectively great wine. For Jon, everything is measured by what you end up with in the glass. The chase is one after excellence, not coolness. And that chase begins with ditching lab analytics (though he most certainly still sends samples off to labs- it’s not about ignoring scientific progress, it’s about integrating said progress into your craft as opposed to letting it automatically make your decisions for you) and relying on his senses. His eyes, his nose, his palate. Angel and Paco’s opinions matter greatly to Jon. Jake and I make a lot of sports references, and this one was too easy- it’s analytics v the eye test. Analytics say to take your starting pitcher out after 88 pitches, no matter what the game situation is. The eye test says take your pitcher out when you think the time is right- whether it’s 82 pitches or 118- based on a multitude of human, emotional data. What’s the score? How’s he doing out there? What’s he saying at mound visits? What does the catcher think? Do you need him to go on short rest in the coming weeks? If all we ever relied on was analytics (and unfortunately, sports, especially baseball, are relying on ONLY analytics more and more), we never would have gotten Madison Bumgarner’s EPIC 2014 World Series performance (for my money, one of the greatest performances in the history of sports). I digress, but the analogy was there, and it was spot on.

Like all wine made in Rioja, patience is the name of the game, and their wines are only released when they think they’re good and ready. As I mentioned, Akutain makes only 4 bottlings- Cosecha is a young wine that never sees a barrel, goes straight from tank to bottle, and is sold after one year of cellar rest. It is bright and youthful, but remains tannic and bold, and it’s perfect for a barbecue (if you bring this to a big barbecue, just bring a whole case, Jon says. A couple bottles is never enough). The Crianza, the one we’re most familiar with, gets 12-18ish months in used oak barrels, another year or two in the cellar. It is delightful, but, to me, doesn’t require food or decanting to be enjoyed. Those first few American oak notes of dill begin to pop through the nose, the tannin is a bit more substantial, and the fruit has rounded into form in the Crianza. Next in the line up is the Reserva, which sees roughly 2+ years in oak and 2+ years in bottle before it’s released. Jon doesn’t make the Reserva every single vintage (but most of them he does), and there is a painstaking process of tasting every single individual barrel once a month to determine which will be used for Crianza or Reserva wine in years that it is made. Some years only 10 barrels get the Reserva nod, and remain in the cellar for years, while 30 get selected for Crianza bottling. Sometimes it’s the other way around. Depends on the vintage and how the wine comes along in the aging process. At last, there is Akutain Gran Reserva, made only in exceptional years, and only when he feels the wine is showing at it’s best. The current release of Gran Reserva has long been the sold out 2004, though he JUST released the 2015 a few weeks ago, and it should be arriving in the American market hopefully within a few weeks. The next vintage that he thinks could be suitable is the 2020, though it will be years before he knows for certain, and won’t be releasing it until 2028 at the absolute earliest. The ‘15 Grand Reserva is a muscular, floral, beast of a wine. It is powerful, but chiseled, the Arnold in his prime. With respect to the wines of Lopez de Heredia, it is the best wine that I’ve tasted this week, and I’m excited to pour it at both restaurants when it’s available (and to lay a case down for myself- it’s got a LONG life ahead of it, and checking in on it every few years will be a fun endeavor). He saves very little of what he makes for any kind of “library”, seeing himself as a wine maker, not a wine collector. And that’s a good thing. Because people should be drinking this stuff.

Our visit with Jon was everything that I’d hoped it would be for my staff. It gave them an honest, authentic look into the life of a man who’s consuming passion was tending to the needs of his 7 hectare estate. The “little guys” in the wine world are the ones that remind us the most of ourselves at Grisette and Jardin. We’re not in state of the art kitchens, plating food with tweezers, doing the ballet that is fine dining service with a nightly staff of 40 people. Like Akutain, we’re little too. At Jardin, there’s almost always only 3-4 people working at once, even when we’re busy. He dropped wisdom on us that we’ll take back with us and immediately apply to our jobs of selling wine- “I like all kinds of wine the way I like all kinds of music. Sometimes, I want rock and roll. Sometimes I want something relaxing. It really depends on the situation.” He talked candidly about about the discipline that it takes to work your ass off for something all year long, and then have to wait 5 YEARS to see if you did a good job or screwed it up. It was refreshing for me, and I will undoubtedly take our topics of conversation back to Richmond with me and use them to help me motivate myself and my staffs.

When Jon was showing us the bottle aging cellar, he stopped at the end of the hallway in front of a small stack of unlabeled, dusty bottles and pulled one out. “This is the last of what we have remaining of the 2004 Gran Reserva, the last Gran Reserva my father ever made. It was the only Rioja on the list at Le Bernadin for a long time.” Jon said. And then he reached out and handed it to me. “Take it home, I want you to drink it”, he said. And, of course, Elyse fucking got me- “You know you’re gonna make him cry, right?”, she goes, while someone snapped a pic of me in my sensitive emotional state. And yeah, I got a little teary eyed accepting such a generous and meaningful gift. 3 times now, jeez. I’m getting soft.

1/6, 1542

The energy in Logrono today has been magnificent and heart warming. It’s the Epiphany, a an old school catholic version of Christmas. Sure, they have normal Christmas too, but not even a generation ago it wasn’t marked with commercialism and gifts. “Santa” is new to Spain. They have the “Three Kings”, or wisemen as they’re often called, and 12 days after Christmas day they bring the loot on Epiphany. We booked this trip without knowing that, but what an unintentionally great time to be here. Outside it’s chilly but clear and sunny, and the streets are half as full as they were yesterday. It’s mostly families going to and from the old Cathedral for mass, mixed in with some people out grabbing coffee and simply walking around. Almost every store is closed. There are enough places to eat still open, but it’s a distinctively different vibe than the happy go lucky tapas going crowd that we mingled with last night. Jake, Kate, Megan Holland and I all got together for a 90 minute walk around town in midday, when it was warm enough to quickly shed my winter coat. We stopped and got coffee and shot the shit about wine travel in places that aren’t as politically stable (read: safe). It’s a big world out there, full of coups and juntas and potentially sticky situations that you find yourself in by no fault of your own. I’ve never been anywhere in the world that I didn’t feel safe outside of the Iraq war (which felt unsafe af, but at least I was heavily armed, not apples to apples in any way), and now that I have kids, it’s something to really consider before doing so. I’m not sure where I land on the spectrum of travelling to “dangerous places”. On one hand, you’ve gotta get out and live. Seeing things that make you uncomfortable not only make you appreciative for what you have, but they make you grow. They make you think, and potentially, change your mind and your actions. But how dangerous is too dangerous? That’s for each of us to decide.

Last night, we met up with Jose Luis Ripa for an unknown type of gathering. All he told me was to bring my gaggle of 8 people to Bar Soriano around 7 pm. Nothing else. No plan, no “I’ll bring some wines to taste”, nada. I’ve had his 2017 rosato on the list for about 6 months now, and it’s a slow mover. We sell one a month, at most. It’s on the bottle list, and $65 bottles of rose shamefully just don’t move like they should. The entire staff except one or two of them has tasted it, and Jac is particularly emphatic about opening it for people when they’re open minded about what to drink with dinner, but it ain’t Pouilly Fume (we sell an insane amount of Sauvignon Blanc yer round, I can never believe it but also love it). I’ve always loved it, and even opened an account with a new distributor just to carry it. For those that know me professionally, that’s a big deal. That one rosato the only wine that Jose Luis makes. Vintage variation and relative inexperience in making wine (he works at a large winery as an importer by day) has led the wines to be quite different year to year- the polar opposite of his wife’s wines. Jose Luis happens to be married to Maria Jose Lopez, one of the three siblings who’s generation is currently at the helm of Lopez de Heredia (talk about pressure to impress your in-laws, sheesh). He makes only 3000-4000 bottles a year out of his garage. Compare that to LdH, who has 13,000 BARRELS full of wine maturing in the cellar, not to mention another 6+ vintages resting in bottle before release. It’s quite the drastic opposite. And yet our time with Jose Luis was as impactful and enjoyable as our tour of his wife’s esteemed bodega, without question.

Bar Soriano can be found on La Laurel, the legendary network of tapas alleyways deep in Old Logrono. Unlike the tapas bars in Madrid, which were about coming in and staying a while for drinks, in La Laurel, one is constantly crawling. When you order a drink, you get a baby 15 cL beer or half glass of wine (usually for 1.00-1.50 Euros). Each restaurant makes a few, typically traditional, things, and some only make ONE DISH. You grab a drink, a two-three bite snack, pay in cash, and move along to the next joint. You never eat the same tapa twice (7 years of bad sex is the penalty for such a sin according to Jose Luis, something I’m not willing to risk), and you rarely stay for a second drink anywhere. The crowd was thick, but I was astounded by how jovial and polite everyone was. The employees at the bars were absolutely SLAMMED, yet never looked flustered or frustrated. People had to wait 5 minutes to grab a drink or a bite, and not one customer looked annoyed. You brushed into people here and there, but always felt like your personal space was respected. It was thousands of people drinking and eating in the same place, all at once, and kids were everywhere. It felt like a party, but a family friendly one. People swore, smoked cigarettes, and were boisterous, but it never crossed a line that made it feel anything short of completely joyous and responsible. Nobody got shitty, although Jose Luis told us that it’s out there if you just stay out late enough and follow the liquor crowd. Every town has its drunks.

Our crawl was, for lack of a better and more intelligent term, epic. Having Jose Luis, a Logrono native and La Laurel veteran of many decades, was key. In a place like this, there’s a lot of bad food, and he was there to keep us focused on the quality stuff. Bar Soriano has but one item on their menu: mushrooms with shrimp and garlic. They’re cooked on the flat tip in copious amounts of butter, come on a little skewer with a hunk of bread on the bottom to sop up all of said garlic butter that fill the caps of the upside down button mushrooms. One little shrimp garnishes the top, and you take the whole thing down in just a few bites. My buddy (and very experienced wine traveler) Andrew loves these things so much that a photo of that place was his only request of me on this trip. His death row bite of food, according to him. And he ain’t crazy- they’re fucking delicious. We got the informal hellos out of the way while eating these and putting back a nervous glass of wine. We weren’t sure what the plan was, and we were WIPED. It had been a long day of travel, an emotional summit of sorts at Lopez de Heredia, and some delayed check ins to lodging for some of us. Jose Luis said that he wanted to take us out for tapas, but only to the best places. How could we say no?

The next three hours were amazing. To my memory, I think we stopped at 9 places, each for something different to eat and a bottle of wine that we split 9 ways. Mushrooms, tostas, tortilla, lots of seafood snacks, crunchy pork belly, jamon, queso, pate, anchovies and olives… he ordered everything, and we were along for the ride. At each stop, it felt like he reached out and connected with a different side group of our staff, talking in depth about his work, his life, and his philosophies. We listened to him talk a lot about Spain- the history, the culture, the people. He was a pseudo celebrity, constantly being stopped by some passerby for a hello and a hug. Even in crowds of thousands, he knew everyone, and everyone knew him. He took us to the restaurants that were still owner operated, always a sign of quality and authenticity according to him (and something I agree with emphatically back at home). All 9 of us squeezed into shotgun style places that didn’t look like they could fit another single human body. “Work your way to the back and then we just take the space as people leave.” he told us. It was immediately clear that he was a pro at going out for a night of tapas on La Laurel. His wine was on the list at an upper end tapas joint, so we went there for a bottle of the 2018 and some quail escabeche that was mind bendingly great. The 2018 rosado was a great wine, to drink with food especially. It’s rich and nutty, and is a bit like drinking dry sherry with a little more acid and fruit on the palate (a welcome improvement for most people’s palates I’d think, certainly my own). We ended the night as a group with my favorite bite of the entire evening- traditional Spanish tortilla. I’m not usually an egg guy. I think hard boiled eggs are gross, and I’m not really into fried eggs or poached eggs either. I do, however, love a perfect omelette. I’m a custard guy, if you will. A french omelette with nothing but cheese in it is one of my favorite simple culinary pleasures. Tortilla is Spain’s answer to the French omelette- fluffy eggs, gently cooked around potatoes and sometimes cheese. It’s cooked a la minute (never eat tortilla reheated in the microwave, according to Jose Luis, and that’s how most places do it… in fact, Chef Mike stays busy over here in the touristy areas), and it’s served like a little pizzette for a group of people to cut wedges from. It was perfect- no brown edges, light and rich at the same time, seasoned well, and served with a spicy but not searing pepper relish. Truly a remarkably humble dish, executed perfectly.

We thought we were meeting up with a guy for an hour, and that he might know the owners of a place and pour us a couple of bottles of his wine and let us ask questions about soil types and oxidative wine making methods and move along with our trip. What we got was so much more than that. We got 4 uninterrupted hours of this man’s attention and conversation. He was enthusiastic and inquisitive and generous (he wouldn’t let me pick up a check all night, which made me squirm once or twice towards the end, but really it’s so cheap here that I felt ok about it ultimately). After everyone peeled off from the group, he and I grabbed one last bite together. We got some cabrales (spicy spicy Spanish blue cheese, one of my favorites) and a glass of PX sherry from a cheese shop, and I told him how much we appreciated his time and his company. At that last stop, just one on one, we discussed personal growth, and it’s importance over professional growth. We talked about how important principles are in business ownership, and none more important that taking care of people, both employees and guests. We talked about how we both have to guard ourselves against impostor syndrome, one of a rich emotional and professional life’s greatest threats. Here I was, in Rioja, connecting with this man of great importance and taking away lessons of humility and having the discipline and wisdom to know when to say “I have enough”. For a second there, standing in that cheese shop, I had an out of body experience of sorts. A cracking open of my brain, if you will. It was a moment of appreciating how lucky I am to have what I have. My family (who I am really beginning to miss), my restaurants, my life. It was a profound moment that I’ll never forget for as long as I live.

We parted ways around 11 PM. I was stuffed and so tired I was barely standing, and he had to meet up with a friend for dinner (not joking). I came back to my BNB, which has a beautiful view of the church square, pounded water, took a shower, and went straight to bed. I finally got that elusive 10 hour rest that my brain and body have both been craving since well before I left for Spain. December was a hell of a month for me, the hardest month of my life since opening Grisette for sure. It was busy, yeah, but the emotional ups and downs, both privately and publicly, did a number on my confidence and mental health. I haven’t slept the sleep of a satisfied man in a while, and I woke up today feeling better than I’ve felt lately.

1/6, 1145

Yesterday was one of the best days of my professional life. I say that having had a lot of great days as a restaurant professional- incredible meals at 3 Michelin star restaurants, eating my way through America’s greatest food cities like Chicago, New York, and New Orleans, that one day in France this past summer when we went to Le Soula, then out for a leisurely 3 hour lunch, THEN misunderstood some gummy doses (ahem, Hannah, ahem) and hit the nude beach, THEN went for oysters… there have been a lot of them over the years. But yesterday was something entirely different.

We started the day at 05:30. For those keeping score, I wasn’t in bed until 1:00. I powered up the Nespresso in my BNB and pounded two quick ones in between an ice cold shower and hazily putting myself together. I’m not too old for this yet, but I’m getting there. The cleanse awaits upon my return to the States, that’s for sure. Jake and I picked up the two rental cars from the underground lot (Madrid has an entire city sized parking lot beneath it, I swear), and snagged the cru by 6:10 for a three hour drive up to Rioja. The ride was easy and peaceful in my car. I was astounded by the sun’s late arrival for the day- there wasn’t even a hint of light on the horizon until 8:00, and it wasn’t full up and out until closer to 8:30. Spencer mentioned reading about how Spain technically is in the “wrong” time zone, and that’s why the sun seems off schedule so often. We arrived in the stunning little village of Haro by 9:15- just enough time to grab something quick to eat and another round of caffeine before our visit to R. Lopez de Heredia. The waiter at the cafe had a field day with us. We were those stereotypical Americans, in a hurry and needing to tranqilla or something of the like. We ate as quickly as we were allowed, and not because we’re shitty Americans, but because we had a 10:00 appointment at the greatest Rioja producer in the world, and we weren’t about to be late for that.

For those not familiar, Lopez de Heredia is one of the most legendary wine bodegas in the world. While their wines don’t claim the arm, leg, and first born of upper level Burgundies, Bordeaux, and Barolos, they are still uttered in the same sentance. They have the proud distinction of perhaps being the most patient winery in the world. With respect to many of the upper crust of Rioja’s 600+ wine producers, there are Riojas and then there is LdH, and it’s really not even up for debate. Jake pointed out the real crux of their uniqueness and success to me on a walk through Logrono after our visit yesterday afternoon. “I’ve seen massive wine production, and I’ve seen painstakingly high quality wine production, but never in the same place before.” LdH owns a mind boggling 172 hectares of grape vines. 425 acres of nothing but old, gnarled, untrellised bush vines that they tend to and harvest each year BY HAND with the help of over 70 seasonal harvest workers. Their holdings are divided into single vineyard sites based on the various microclimates of their land, with the biggest (and it’s most famous) being Tondonia- over 100 hectares planted mostly with Tempranillo and Garnacha, but also with a bit of Viura (Macabeo), Graciano, and Mazuela (Carignan). The winery is frozen in time, something our impeccable host, Luis, mentioned often. Everything is done the old school way- for a ludite like myself, it was satisfying to see. The presses are wooden and use hydraulics. Their 3, full time, in house coopers keep all 13,000 of their Appalachian Oak (yep, their wood of choice hails from the hills of our very own Commonwealth) barrels in repaired and working order, while also cranking out a few hundred new ones each year. They rack their wines with wooden funnels and tubes, shun computers (they bought their first new forklift in 40 years a few years back, and are frustrated with how often it is broken down because of internal computer problems), and cling tightly to the identity of their wines. Consistency through tradition is everything to them, and not because they aren’t forward thinking, but because their history has been one of excellence. They are one of the OG “natural wine” makers, in today’s terms. They never use chemicals, not just their vineyards, but also in their cellars- they let naturally occurring penicillin mold and spiders and water to the work of the modern arsenal of sprays, cleaning solutions, air conditioning and pesticides. Once you introduce something not organically hailing from their world, Luis explained, it throws the entire internal ecosystem of the winery out of whack. “If we cleaned the cobwebs, how would we stay free of insects without resorting to chemicals?” And you know what, it wasn’t dirty at all. It was a novel (and logical) approach to making wine.

***Aside*** The United States government would never allow LdH to exist- every department of something would have something to say about some antiquated, not-up-to-code aspect of their bodega, even though it is a perfectly functioning machine. Some lobbyist in the plastic industry would worm his way into a “professional” visit, record all of the ghastly conditions, report it to the health department, and then profit massively from all of the updates that they would be required to make in order to not be shut down because 3M pays him to do it. It’s that’s a fucking shame, but the truest shit I’ve ever said. I’ve concluded that Europe’s charm is it’s freedom (ironic, huh? And also, I say this while a war is tearing through Europe right now. It has been contemplative to think about what’s happening in Ukraine at this very moment and being on the same land mass as them. And other bad shit happens in Europe too. This is a traveler’s thoughts about being on a working vacation, not an all out declaration on politics and human life in Europe. Not to bring the whole thing down, but it needs to be said). You can walk around the streets with a beer. You can run your winery the way you want. Sure, there are laws (and taxes, LOTS of those too), and it’s not a paradise by any means. But boy if there isn’t just a different view as to what freedom means over here. Not to get all Marxist on anyone, but FREEDOM in America means the freedom to do whatever you want, as long as big business or another “special interest” lobby is cool with it. You are free to get as rich as you want, even if it means stepping on the throats of other Americans. Money is the answer to all of your questions. Here, it means you can do whatever you want and long as you’re not being a dick about it. And I really appreciate it. End rant***

The winery forbids photographs being uploaded to social media, and tells you very clearly at the beginning of the tour that you make take them for personal enjoyment only (but not of the employees, under any circumstances). Even the trust of their photography policy is so goddamn charming. I mean, imagine that anywhere else. They don’t want the photos to be shared because you are on hallowed ground. This winery is not open to the public, and they’re not interested in “wine tourism”. That brings the masses (ever been to Napa and seen the tour buses? It’s the goddamn Disneyland of wine regions, and it ain’t typically that fun). That brings Instagram influencers, and people that throw their cigarette butts on the ground in their parking lot (shit, it brings parking lots! which are in short supply in the tiny village as it is!). They are happy with what they have (another theme that runs through the culture of Spain is happiness). While it’s always a business to them (Don Raphael Lopez de Heredia was not a wine maker, he was a smart and prudent business man), they have enough money (which I reckon is plenty, but not billions, or even hundreds of millions… it’s worth a lot more than they probably have in liquid cash… the purchase of an estate that is not for sale would come at multiple billions one would imagine… but it will never happen… thank god). They make an insane amount of wine. With rough math, and I could be off by a lot here, they’re always sitting on somewhere between $200-300m worth of wine that is simply ageing in their cellars. That’s just the stuff they’re putting into circulation too- the Grand Reserva is also called the Familia Reserva because guess what? They drink the best stuff them fuckin’ selves. Because wouldn’t you? Some of the Grand Reserva, which is only released about once a decade- only the best years of course, and only when it’s ready of course- and the current release is their 2001. They’re not even going to make white wine (one of their most sought after releases within wine circles) from something like 2014-2018 because they thought the vintages sucked (could also be off by a year here or there, Jose Luis told me this last night after like 3 hours of tapas and wine). Listen to that- they just didn’t use it because it wasn’t good enough. They don’t have a second label. I don’t think they sold the grapes. I think they just used it for “distillation”, which I hope means turning it into a secret fortified wine that I need to find out about.

Our three hour tour (a threeee hour tourrr) ended in the tasting room. Luis opened a bottle of 2011 Bosconia and 2010 Tondonia (the youngest wines they have available to anyone anywhere) to accompany a massive spread of the best jamon I’ve eated in Spain, and they all ain’t created equally (would you expect anything less?). His skills as a liaison were are as impressive as the rest of the winery itself, the wine included. He was warm, and gracious, and talkative, and funny, and insanely knowledgeable. He made the most intimidating visit of my life the most comfortable and enjoyable time I’ve ever had at one of these things. I think he had a good time with us too- we were at easy, in awe, and letting the jokes fly in a very natural way, while also asking a ton of questions. I was so happy with how we represented ourselves as wine professionals and people today. Respectful but honest and real. It’s what makes our restaurants special.

Sometimes, though, there is a line that must be balanced between the two sides of our esprit de corps. Like when you’re standing in the presence of the wine gods, in the tasting room at Don Raphael Lopez de Motherfucking Heredia, and lift your tasting glass of Tondonia to your nose, take a deep breath in with a smile on your face and have to be the turd in the room that says, “I think it’s corked”. Which I did. And it was corked, but holy shit I got Jake and Megan to make sure I was right before I said a goddamn thing. Imagine the shame of being that ass hole if you’re wrong. I’m literally in tears right now recalling the moment I had to say it out loud. Happy tears for the second time in two days! A great trip thus far indeed.

1/5, 1815

I swore to myself that I’d be in bed early last night, and yet, there I was, at midnight, squeezing down an absolutely packed Madrid street. Jenissa, Spencer and I went out for a properly plated dinner last night, and washed down our sweetbreads and monkfish and pork belly with maybe a bottle too many of good wine. We went to a place that was a bibb gourmand in the Michelin guide, and it was good but not great. It’s always reassuring and affirming to me when that happens out in the wide world of cuisine- not because I want places to be disappointing, but because it reminds me that excellence is an insanely difficult dragon to chase in our industry, and even the “best” spots fall short from time to time. Every single time that I return from traveling, whether it’s to the Continent or just Charlottesville, I tell our staff at preshift about my meals out in full detail. I expect to hear the same reports from them when they go out too, both locally and abroad. We talk about the service gaffes, the thoughtful moments that I loved, the dishes that were just perfect, and the dishes that fell flat. We have a lot of fun working at our restaurants, but it is important for us to keep in mind that what we’re after at Grisette and Jardin is culinary and hospitality excellence. It’s only fun because we’re good at it, not because chopping onions and taking out the recycling or setting up your station is inherently a good time, per se. But when you crush a service, or you put up a bangin’ special, or when you nail a wine pairing and send a guest over the moon about something, it almost feels like winning in sports, or putting on a perfect show in theater. And winning is fun. Habitual excellence is what makes winners winners. Habitual excellence is what ALLOWS things to be fun.

Circling back to the meal we ate last night, there were a few moments that caught me off guard. The server not knowing the wine list well enough to bring us the right bottle of bubbles. The fried monkfish cheeks not being hit with any acid and requiring a lemon wedge. The 12 year old bottle of Rioja not being decanted and sludge just poured directly into all of our glasses. Surely, if this place is mentioned among Madrid’s best while committing all of these simple to avoid yet grave sins, Grisette is doing pretty well for itself. Experiences like those remind me that we are doing something special at our spots. That our standards of excellence aren’t just high, but they’re practiced. It makes me immensely proud of my staffs from both restaurants, and thankful that I have an opportunity to do what I do for a living surrounded by so many people that buy in to drinking the Grisette/Jardin Kool-Aide of just trying to cook good food and open good wines and make people feel nice.

Anyways, I’m rambling. I’ll return later (maybe tomorrow) to tell you about our religious experience at R. Lopez de Heredia. We’re here in Logrono, smack in the middle of Rioja until Monday. Lots to do, lots to eat. Adios!

1/4, 1905

It’s been a gorgeous day here in Madrid. It was sunny, clear, and just chilly enough to keep a coat whenever I was outside, which is where I spend a majority of my time. I started with a light breakfast. A kale smoothie, coffee and sourdough with butter and jam helped put my brain back together after last night’s festivities. I went for a brisk walk down to the city’s botanical gardens and grabbed a park bench in the sun. I queued up a podcast, and perused some restaurants on my phone as lunch ideas. I decided that I’d go to two different places and grab a plate at each, it was just a matter of keeping it relatively in the neighborhood and which two it would be. I figured a proper siesta requires burning some serious calories in the morning by walking around and a hefty lunch with a glass or three of wine. Say what you will about Eater.com (do people say anything about Eater, or am I just making this up? Maybe it’s just an exhaustion/disillusion thing with food journalism in general from my perspective as a restaurateur… we don’t think the lists matter, until you’re not on one. I hate the thought of being on a “hot list” but love the thought of being on an “essential” list. Yeesh. There’s an entire 3000 word post I could write all about my insecurities as a chef (which are just deeper versions of my insecurities as a person), but I digress…), but it’s typically pretty dang reliable (Steph Ganz’s Richmond list is pretty hard to quibble with, imho, but again, Grisette is on it, so it’s ok). I decided on two spots from the Madrid essential restaurant list with intensely focused menus, which if you knowmeknowme, is something I love. Say it all together now, “variety is the death of quality”. It was to be a sardine spot followed by a mushroom spot.

I kept busy until noon by simply walking and sipping Americanos. I popped into the Rolex boutique to try on a white gold Yachtmaster with a black bezel that I’ll literally never be able to afford and honestly would never buy even if I could (goddamn it was stunning though). I browsed some vintage stores for a peat coat, but naturally nothing in Europe fits my fat ass. I have to wait until like 2 pm to Facetime my kids and Meggo, with drives me kinda crazy when I’ve got time to kill in the morning. Nothing like Teddy holding the phone and talking my ear off while only pointing the camera at one of his eyeballs the whole time.

The sardine spot was a very charming dump. Like, nobody cleaned anything when they closed the night before, and they just opened the next day (30 minutes later than they say they open) and it was fine. Most of the restaurants here are dirty by American standards, and filthy by Jardin and Grisette’s, but it does add a little rustic je ne sais quois to the whole experience. A cockroach ran across my foot in a tapas bar yesterday and I kinda just smiled and took another bite of food and ordered another beer. Anyways, the fish themselves were tasty. Just griddled on a flat top with olive oil, aggressively seasoned with some big chunky sea salt that I really loved (big like sel gris), and eaten with your hands. Their “other dish” was padron peppers, which were fine. The whole thing, both the sardines and peppers, needed to be served with a quarter of a lemon for self squeezing, but fuck what some picky American chef thinks, ya know? A couple of beers and some fishy fish was a nice start to my lunch. By the time I left, around 1:00-1:15, the place was absolutely slammed.

The mushroom place was the polar opposite- very tight and put together, a chef’s-chef’s restaurant to be sure. The menu had 8 dishes, all using a different variety of mushroom. The dining room was quaint and well decorated, wine glasses preset at each seat, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy playing on the radio (one of favorite songs), etc. I poked my head in the door about 15 minutes before they opened and asked if there was room for 1 person right when they opened, and the guy setting the dining room said no problem. I did a few laps around the surrounding blocks and returned promptly at 1:30. My Spanish is coming along as I expected, but it’s pretty obvious that I’m not good at it. He smiled as I struggled to ask questions about the menu, let me really try hard before he switched to equally poor but appreciated broken English. I ordered a couple of plates- black trumpet mushrooms and black truffles- and told him to just bring me a glass of wine of his choice with each. Both dishes were well executed, though I wished that Hans was with me so we could have just ordered the whole menu and glutted out. As food arrived at the tables beside me, I felt like I perhaps missed some really good stuff. The dishes were heavy though, and two was more than enough. I paid my very light bill (it’s so cheap to eat and drink here compared to America… I will spend the same amount on food all week as Jake and I did in Philly in one day), and headed home, excited about my impending siesta.

Sleep came easily. I only had time for an hour though, because Jake and I had to go pick up the whips, as the Europcar doesn’t open early enough to get to our tasting appointment in Rioja tomorrow on time. We navigated the streets and overnight parking garage easily enough. We stopped in another hole in the wall (also, very dirty, like, trash just strewn about on the floor) for a beer and calamari bocadillo, followed by a wine shop to start building a reserve of bottles for our big dinner that we’re cooking ourselves on Friday night in Logrono. The guys at the shop were Brits, and very helpful. He asked us where we were from, and said “oh no way, my best mate is from a place called short pump?”. I offered my condolences to his friend for obvious reasons, and told him to come by Jardin whenever he made it over the pond for a visit.

Now I’m here, sitting at my little kitchen table, having a glass of vermouth (6 months ago I became consumed by Vermouth, and it was perfect timing for this trip… it’s everywhere and I’m drinking it all) and writing this. I knocked out payroll just in case I didn’t have time tomorrow and talked to Megan on the phone. I’m gonna pack here in a moment, just so I don’t have to worry about it late tonight or in the morning. The alarm goes off at 5:30 AM, with a 3 hour drive to kick the day off, so I’ll keep it pretty tame tonight. I’ll head out for dinner at 9:00 and be in bed by midnight, an early one by most Spanish standards. It’s Rioja in the morning!

1/4, 0820

We’re finally all here and accounted for. We met up last night for a raucous good time down on Calle Cava Baja, where we downed a seemingly incalculable number of bottles of wine and ate until we were full. The best food of the night actually came from the meetup spot in our neighborhood, Viva Madrid. The black rice under the seabass was particularly revelatory- briney and buttery and perfectly textured. Octopus, potatoes, jamon, and boquerones are all on every menu, and for good reason- they’re perfectly suited to snacking on while drinking sherry, vermouth, or dry white wine. It was heart warming to see everyone together. Lots of laughs, lots of jokes and stories, lots of hugs. Our group is pretty big when everyone shows up- 8 staff plus 4 significant other’s (SOs as they’re referred to in the group chat) makes for a party of 12, which most of these little tapas places can’t hold once they’re busy and rolling. Despite the unwieldy size of the group, we managed to squeeze into enough places. Nobody here is afraid to pack it in like sardines, and nobody is afraid to stand while they eat and drink, both of which I love and wish would rub off on American dining culture a bit. Places are loud- not with manufactured noise, but a din of conversation. For an extrovert like me, it’s a pretty perfect social scene.

I thought I’d sleep until noon today, what, with no kids and nothing to officially do until tomorrow morning when we head to our first producer visit. Alas, even after a day’s worth of travel and a spirited night of food and booze, I was up with the sun at 7:30. As a city, Madrid shares some Old World metropolitan characteristics with Paris- the streets are narrow, the interior of most buildings is tight, the architecture is beautiful, and the neighborhoods sprawl on forever. It’s a shame that we leave tomorrow at the crack of dawn, as a few more days here would’ve been really up my alley. I’m a lover of big cities, and I feel like I’d quickly fall in love with so many parts of Madrid.

I’m off to get breakfast somewhere close and to pick a direction to start walking in for the morning. A coffee and a green juice are both quite necessary after last night. There’s a huge park nearby that I’ll likely stroll through for an hour while I work up an appetite for lunch. The siesta lifestyle will suit me quite well I think, as I’m already looking forward to a nap. Tomorrow morning we leave the city at 6 AM and head north, to Rioja. We start our trip with the legendary Lopez de Heredia at 10:00, which we’re all pretty stoked about and hopeful for a dive into their library of ancient wines. I’ve had some 20-30 year old whites of theirs that were other worldly. Until later.

1/3, 1427 CET (Central European Time, aka Madrid time from here on out)

Once, I drove from Woodbridge, Virginia, all the way to Denver in a 98’ Wrangler with the top down and no AC in the middle of the summer all in one go. It took me 27 hours, 2 of which I napped in a St. Louis Steak-n-Shake parking lot with a pistol in my hand and one eye still open. I was 23 and it felt like a very normal thing to do at the time. Now I’m 36, and coming down from a 25 hour door-to-door transit from Richmond to Madrid, and feel like I’ve been hit by a truck and wonder where my energy is coming from. I haven’t gotten a full or even decent night of sleep in 4-5 days, and all those exhaustion feels are coming home to roost at the same time.

Philly was meh, but that’s to be expected without a guide in a lot of places. It’s a big city full of places to eat and drink and shop, that’s for sure, and I owe it a long, unrushed, weekend soon. The overnight flight was easy peasy- the plane was a little snug to have three rows of three, but I lucked out and nobody sat in between my row partner and I, so a smidge of stretching out allowed me to grab an hour to two of (very fitful) sleep. I plowed through the Holiday edition of the Economist (a lot of wildly fascinating stories and features in this edition, highly recommend the one about the Indonesian community tucked into the jungle, worth seeking out), and I watched exactly 30 minutes of Rosetta Stone Spanish videos.

My Spanish is far worse than my French. In France, I can get around. Simple transactions, polite conversation, wine speak, etc is a breeze in French, though if you dig any deeper, my vocabulary dries up quite quickly. Here, I’m a little more lost. I took a couple of years of Spanish in college, but it was almost 20 years ago. I’ve used Spanish in kitchens, but not recently. It’s pretty rusty, though I’m powering through the awkwardness and it’s beginning to come back to me. My favorite part of Spanish is the glorious dropping of the pronoun. To me, it’s such a more natural way to speak, like using contractions in English. It just flows better. Meggo always gets on me because I do it in French too, which isn’t correct and often leaves French people a little confused as to what I’m saying.

We taxied into Madrid and dropped our bags at Kate and Jake’s swanky hotel. I took off to walk around for a bit while they showered. I strolled for a couple of hours through the Centro neighborhood, where all of us are staying. We’re a few blocks from the Plaza Mayor, and the streets and alleyways are PACKED with Tapas and Pinchos bars. A coffee, a cheap European winter hat purchase (doing my best Cason Love impersonation over here), a jamon bocadillo and a few glasses of wine were all in order. Everything was tasty (and cheap), and the people were friendly despite my poor communication skills. We downed some tapas and met up with Sky and Kennedy at a hole in the wall called Matador. We’re meeting the rest of the group back there later this evening for some drinks, and then Sky is leading the group to a Calle that is dedicated to a tapas crawl of sorts. He arrived yesterday and already has a pretty good lay of the land w regards to where the good vemut bar and wine shop is (crucial information on a trip like this).

For now, I just checked into my BNB, grabbed a sizzling hot shower, and I’m about to crash for a few hours. Everything happens late in Spain to begin with, and allegedly even later in Madrid specifically. If my old ass is gonna keep up with my 20 something staff, I’m gonna need all the rest I can get. And water.

Until later. Ciao!

1/2, 1045 EST

Even as a person who likes nice shit, I can be painfully cheap at times.  Not frugal (I’m shamefully bad at DIY stuff), not miserly (I don’t stack cash just to stare at it), just plain old cheap.  Like when a box of cereal is 6 bucks, I refuse to buy it on principle.  Like when I was booking this flight to Spain, and I could save $200 with an 8 hour layover in Philly, I was like “damn, totally worth it”.  It’s not so much about the money as it is the victory of spending less in the moment.  

What I always fail to recognize, even after all of these years of being cheap, is that it can be expensive being cheap.  Because once I’m at the airport, I’m not NOT going to have a drink and buy this week’s Economist.  And 8 hours in Philly means 8 hours of walking around, grabbing lunch, ubering back to the airport, etc.  So while I saved on the front end of the transaction, I’ll likely lose my shirt on the back.  But I felt really good about saving that 200 dollars in the moment, and I’m REALLY excited to check out Philly for an afternoon, so I win emotionally twice.  Jake and I (Jake, Kate, and I are all flying together) are going to grab cheesesteaks from Cleaver’s and a Tahini milkshake from Goldie’s and then race up the Rocky steps (wish our bellies luck).  It’s like a mini vacation within a vacation.

See ya in Spain, amigos.

1/1, 1049 EST

When the Grisette crew traveled to France last summer, I kept a running travelogue on a near daily basis. I did it mostly for myself- so I’d be able to fondly remember details of experiences and to give me something constructive to do each day for an hour while the family napped. It was fun to capture the little thoughts, freshly recollected quotations, and silly, nuanced things like just how big the sweat stain under Teddy’s head was in the morning because it was just so damn hot in that apartment. When we got home and I got back to work, I was floored by how many people told me that they read along every day and loved the candid narrative of our adventures. So here we go again, but this time it’s the Jardin squad (and me sin familia) heading to the Iberian peninsula for a week of tapas and Rioja producer visits. So read along! Like last time, these posts will not be edited for grammar, punctuation, or bloviating. Enjoy!

WHY WE TRAVEL AT GRISETTE AND JARDIN

International travel (especially to wine regions) is incredibly important to both of our restaurants, yet it isn’t historically something that many hospitality folks enjoy regularly. Sure, lots of people have taken a trip before. But how many restaurant people can say they go abroad annually? Or a couple of times a year? I reckon it’s not many, and for a myriad of reasons. The big one is obviously money. While travel isn’t as expensive as many assume, it also ain’t free. But if you do your homework, plan well, and pick where you want to spend and where you want to save, a trip to Europe can cost a lot less than a trip in the US, especially when the dollar is strong like it’s been for the last year. I mean, a flight to Madrid was cheaper than a flight to pretty much anywhere in the States west of the Rockies. I’m staying in a studio Air BNB in the middle of the city for 38 bucks a night. And a beer on the street in Logrono only costs a couple of Euros. Try going to Miami or LA or NYC or Chicago etc. and spending less. Good luck. The other reason we don’t travel is time. What restaurant is just cool with everyone splitting for a week, especially at the same time? At both of our spots, we build in restaurant closures and budget paid time off for the staff. Closing for a week once or twice a year gives us an opportunity to go somewhere and see something.

Which is exactly why we travel in the first place. To go see some shit. To go live somewhere other than America, even just for a week or two, and take it all in. We romanticize European food, European wines, European restaurants, and European healthcare (er, well, at least I do- imagine a developed country where a trip to the Emergency room for your 2 year old to get some fluids when they’re sick doesn’t cost FORTYFIVEHUNDREDDOLLARS). With our admitted Old World infatuation, how could we possibly speak with any authority on these topics without going to the source and living it for ourselves? I’ve been lectured by far too many people that have never been to Naples about what a proper Neapolitan pizza is supposed to be. We need to lounge in tapas bars and talk about sports and politics. To take a siesta in the afternoon. To go out at an ungodly late hour of the night for a dinner of grilled iguana and braised tripe and cheap bottles of spritzy Txakoli. We need to see the millennia old wine cellars and centenarian grape vines. We need to listen to the 10th generation wine makers talk about their craft- the weather, the soil, the varietals, and the economy of wine in their region. We travel to learn everything there is to know in our discipline of food, wine, and hospitality. In my life, and the lives that I encourage for our staff of career restaurant folks, THAT’S FUCKIN’ LIVIN’ BABY.

So off we go. We all take off from Richmond or DC at some point today or tomorrow and will all convene in Madrid on Wednesday evening for snacks and wine. I’ll keep everyone abreast of our adventures here. Happy New Year, and chat soon from a lengthy Philadelphia layover!